Grizz took me to Metairie, a small but sprawled suburb. Short on trees and built on the usual flat Louisianan ground, it was met on three sides by the endless wetlands, the massive Lake Ponchartrain, and the magical New Orleans itself.

He decided to pause and top off his tank at a gas station. I hovered near the bike, thinking about the sharp turns my life had taken in the last twenty-four hours.

I wasn’t sure what to do, where to go, or why I had silently agreed to accompany him. My place in his world, and his in mine? That was still in a dark, murky spot in my mind.

What the hell happens next?

The biker wandered back outside from the convenience store. I watched his confident swagger, the chains dangling from his rugged jeans. I couldn’t deny how sexy he looked with that restrained, powerful stare as he approached.

I can’t let him have this effect on me.

Easier said than done.

“Where are we staying?” I asked, watching his powerful movements. It was a struggle to not lick my lips.

“Here,” Grizz answered, spinning a finger in the air while he walked.

“In Metairie?”

Grizz stopped in front. Smirking, his head crooked slightly, he chuckled out his words. “You got a problem with Metairie?”

My answer was defiant. “No.”

“Good,” Grizz nodded, looking around outside the gas station to the sprawling nothingness around. “Because this just might be home for a little while.”

I put my hands on my hips. “What made you pick here? Why not just New Orleans? Didn’t that club send you with some money?”

“They did, but funds are running tight as it is. No reason to start draining the account if we’re here longer than a couple of weeks,” Grizz replied. “Somewhere cheap and close is better. Besides, I like having a little more room than we’d get in the city.”

“Do you even know where we’re staying yet? Picked a place?”

“Thought I’d wing it. Trust me, the right door will open.”

That was the Grizz I remembered – handsome, confident… and cocky. I had wondered how long it was going to take him to let out some of that old arrogance… He seemed so dead certain that the universe would provide.

“So, no plan then?”

“I’ll find us a place,” Grizz nodded, fiddling with the pump. He plugged it into the gas tank on his bike. “We’ll get a motel for the night. Might try and rent a place after that, just for a little while. Something tells me this little trip has some surprises in store for us.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Simple shit has turned sideways hard for the Dragons the last year or so. Maybe we’re cursed now. I’d like to be wrong, but… there’s something strange in the air. I don’t like it.”

Grizz absentmindedly tugged at the cross around his neck before mounting his bike. I climbed on behind him, wrapping my arms around his leather jacket.

We pulled into a nearby motel. While I watched the bike, he sauntered inside to secure a room.

Five minutes became ten, then twenty, then half an hour. I was already beyond nervous when he finally came back outside.

“What the hell was that?”

Grizz shook his head. “Found us somewhere better.”

“What? How?”

“Bulletin board, up for job postings and shit. There was an ad for a house for rent. It’s cheap… bad neighborhood, probably. I called the owner. Arranged a meet.”

“When?”

“Now,” he answered, mounting the bike.

We drove further into Metairie and stopped by an ATM. After he withdrew some money from the club account, we continued down the main highway running through town, Veteran’s Boulevard.

My eyes scanned the storefronts as we pushed past the commercial areas – fast food joints and cell phone stores quickly becoming apartment complexes and houses.

Grizz took us down a short side street, stopping in front of a small house where an old rust-bucket of a car was parked.

He killed the ignition, and I climbed down. Grizz followed suit, turning to face the stranger who stepped out of the car. She was in her upper forties, wearing worker’s clothes with a thick mane of wispy, prematurely graying hair.

“What was your name again?”

“Grizz,” he answered calmly.

“That’s awesome,” the older lady chuckled, walking over to hold out her hand. “I’m Gladys. I own this here property.”

Grizz shook her hand and introduced me.

Once the formalities were out of the way, Gladys led us inside and showed off the rental house.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why it was so cheap. The place needed a lot – a lot – of work. Some of the ceiling fans didn’t run, there was rust in the sinks, the doorknobs needed replacing, and the whole place could have seriously benefitted from a deep clean.

But it was livable.

Hell, with a day of dedicated scrubbing it could be home…

“Want me to turn it down?” He quietly asked me while Gladys was prattling on and on about the great schools and the easy access to the essentials.

“Do we have better options?”

“Motels,” he answered.

“Take it.”

He nodded, pulling Gladys aside and handing her a couple of bills. She held up a one hundred dollar note against the overhead light, scrutinizing it for a moment, then stuffed it into a pocket.

“Hundred-twenty a week, yessiree. I know it’s kind of a fixer-upper, so I ain’t askin’ much more.”

“Pleasure doing business,” Grizz noted.

“I’m just a couple of streets over. I’ll write down the address. Pop by late at night during the week, or midday on the weekends. Keep me paid up, and she’s all yours.”

“Done.”

Gladys grabbed him on the shoulder affectionately, pressing a key into his hand. “I think I’m gonna like you two.”

After our new landlord was gone, I put the living room in workable order while Grizz popped out for fast food. This was no high-class Airbnb, but the place had the basics covered.

A large, soft couch and an easy chair dominated the living room in front of a big, old school television on a table. In the kitchen, a beaten-up old stove and an ancient refrigerator stood guard with some disposable cutlery, plates, and glasses at hand. A full cooking set was in the lower cabinets, although it looked straight out of the seventies.

The bedroom fared about the same. But the mattress was soft, there were some lamps on end tables, and thick blackout curtains were there to keep the sun away.

The bathroom was the jewel of the whole house. It was surprisingly spotless. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what kind of disaster had happened in there that made the owner decide to remodel the bathroom, but I was thankful for it.

Grizz came back with Mexican food, so we chowed down on tacos and enchiladas. We wound up with an uncomfortable silence as we ate, and I couldn’t help but gaze at his firm figure while he sat across from me in just a shredded tee and rugged jeans.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were undressing me with those pretty eyes of yours,” he laughed.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” I blurted out, derailing the whole moment.

Grizz stared strangely. While I pretended to not be embarrassed, a look of amusement crossed his face.

“Wasn’t implying that you were.”

“Good. Just so that’s clear.”

“Crystal,” Grizz muttered, taking another chomp out of a crunchy taco that was disintegrating with every bite.

“Unless you tell me everything that happened,” I suddenly added.

Grizz’s expression changed. His gravely face seemed to be fighting between surprise and disappointment.

“I…” he replied. “I need more time.”

“Fine,” I heard myself insist. What’s gotten into me? Who’s this woman making me say this? “But just know, it’s not going to happen until you explain yourself.”

I rose from my seat, taking my paper plate to the trash and putting the bedroom door between us. I sank onto the side of the bed in confusion.

What the hell just happened?

My brain scrambled for clarity, but I’d just yammered without thinking. Did I seriously just offer myself up to him for some goddamned closure? How the hell does that even work?

There was a knock at the door.

Great.

“Come in,” I replied, a little more bitterly than I wanted to.

The door creaked open. Grizz let himself into the bedroom, taking a seat on the corner of the mattress.

“I have missed you,” he confessed.

“I know,” I snapped.

Grizz turned away. There was a deep longing in his gaze as he focused on the wall, his chest slowly heaving with heavy, saddened thoughts.

I had to say something or I’d lose him.

“Look, Grizz… I missed you too,” I finally replied. “It kept me up at night for years.”

He turned to face me. “Same.”

That was hard to believe.

Something in my face tipped him off to that, because he took a deep breath. “Kate, I never thought that I’d ever see you again. Tried my hardest to push it all away, but I never could. Not completely. You never left my mind. It distracted me from my work. I took a bullet in a cartel compound in Mexico and I bled into the dirt thinking of you… willing us to be together again. Praying.”

“Grizz,” I started, but he cut me off.

“And now, you’re here. We’re here together and there’s no fucking way that should have happened. I’ve done great and terrible things. I don’t deserve a miracle. You’re my fucking miracle, Kate.”

“Is that true?” I asked.

“Which part?”

“That you took a bullet, thinking of me.”

He smiled. “Have I ever lied to you?”

I rose from the bed. “Only once. But you sure as shit made that one count.”

Grizz sagged with despair, but I didn’t care. It was his fault. We had something great. I’d been more than supportive of him going back to the war instead of joining his life with me… but he never came home.

“I’m not going to deny that I want you, Grizz. I want you so fucking bad it makes my heart sting. I would suck the soul right out of you straight through your cock… but I can’t.”

He glanced up at me sadly.

“Not unless it’s on my terms.”

“And what are your terms?”

I ran my fingers through his hair, making a few quiet passes before gripping it and pulling his head just slightly back, staring down into his stony eyes.

“Explain yourself. Tell me everything.”

His eyes darkened.

“Do that, and I’ll surrender myself to you. Willingly. Grizz, I’ll fuck you so good and so hard that angels will weep…”

He swallowed.

I could see the lust burning in his eyes.

“But I need the whole story, Grizz. Everything. Whatever went down back then… lay it all out for me.”

“I need time,” he replied again.

“Take your time, then,” I snapped. “But just know that every day you drag this out is another day that you won’t have my body twisted against yours…”

Grizz was practically sweating.

But I let go of his hair and sauntered away, letting him watch me walk. If he was going to be a stick in the goddamn mud, then I was going to give that stick the hardest wood of its life…

I’d use sex as a weapon.

He owed me an explanation, and if pushing him wasn’t giving me what I wanted, then I’d just give him the bluest balls a biker has ever had.

I just had to hold out longer than him…